World War II · Film · 1962
Ivan's Childhood
Ivanovo detstvo
A twelve-year-old orphan scouts behind German lines for the Red Army, crossing a flooded river at night, while dreams of the summer before the war keep coming back to him.
Where it happened
Follow the story across 2 places.
Stop 1: Dnieper front near Kanev
Key location
Ivan swims out of enemy territory, reports to a young lieutenant and insists on being sent back across the river on one more mission.
Stop 2: Reich Chancellery, Berlin
In captured Berlin, an officer sifts through Gestapo files looking for what became of the boy.
What really happened
Andrei Tarkovsky's first feature adapts Vladimir Bogomolov's 1957 story 'Ivan', set on the Dnieper front in autumn 1943, when the Red Army forced the river along hundreds of kilometres after the victory at Kursk. It was shot largely near Kanev, where the Bukrin bridgehead battles had been fought.
The Red Army and partisan units did use children as scouts and messengers, and thousands of 'sons of the regiment' served at the front. The film's final scenes in the captured archives of Berlin in May 1945 point to the fate of those who never came back. It won the Golden Lion at Venice in 1962.
Where to watch
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Full details
- Original title
- Ivanovo detstvo
- Directed by
- Andrei Tarkovsky
- Countries
- Russia
- Languages
- Russian, German
- Released
- 1962
- Period
- –
- Theaters of war
- Eastern Front
- Themes
- Combat
- Espionage
